


Turbulent Dreams

by alexanderlightweight



Series: Roswell New Mexico Week 2019 [5]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 07:46:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20004778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanderlightweight/pseuds/alexanderlightweight
Summary: (Part of the Roswell New Mexico Week 2019)Prompt: Freaky FridayIf he dreamt that night, he didn’t remember it.





	Turbulent Dreams

Michael’s dreams normally contained the night sky. A vast and endless heaven stretching across the cold desert with the stars so bright he felt they could guide him home. His nightmares contained his and Alec’s sobs, Jesse Mane’s impassive face as he cruelly shattered both bones and two bright futures. The terrors that shook him apart in his sleep were filled with cages and glass walls, doors he couldn’t breach and Max and Isobel’s screams echoing in his mind and Michael unable to see or save them. **  
**

Now, his dreams exploded around him. Plumes of dust and smoke, unfamiliar screaming and words too muffled to make out from the ringing of his ears. A strange phantom agony, as though he should be feeling pain but his body was too numb to accept the possibility that he was injured. 

When he woke up, panting and gasping for breath. Chest heaving and face dripping sweat he cursed, using his powers to snatch a bottle of acetone from his stash and as he chugged it down, one hand automatically reached out to his right leg. It was stiff and aching, as though he’d slept on it wrong.

-

He drank himself into a stupor that night, booze and acetone mixing until he didn’t have to think about how he and Isobel were going to bring Max back to life. Until he didn’t have to think about the mess that was his personal hell -life- and everything that he’d been trying to avoid. 

_If he dreamt that night, he didn’t remember it._

His right leg ached again that morning, even though he’d slept curled on his left side. 

-

The next night his dreams were back, confusing and with a fear that didn’t feel like his own. A ghost of terror that tickled the back of his neck and put him on edge but never fully enveloped him.

Michael dreamt of hospitals. Instead of dissections and torture, it was IV’s and blurred memories. Confusion, he never knew quite where he was or who was with him. Nothing was familiar, he was looking for someone but he couldn’t find them. People he didn’t know asked questions he couldn’t answer and he was missing something. When he tried to figure out what that was, a hand would push him firmly down, a beep sounded and the world floated away. The feeling of misplaced terror lingered.

_He was adrift._

-

On the good nights, with good dreams, Michael dreamt of blue skies with the odd wisp of clouds. He dreamt of the smell of petrichor lingering on the desert, the rain already greedily drank by the hungry ocean of sand. He’d see a glimpse of tire tracks on the desert and the blue of his truck parked with a nest of blankets in the bed and a guitar nestled against a pillow. Two pairs of boots rested in the corner and it felt like a memory.

Those nights were peaceful, a strangely familiar thrum of a guitar being strummed soothing him until he felt cocooned by peace and safety and love. 

Sometimes, out of the corner of his eye he’d catch a smile that seemed so familiar it was as though he were catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror. A brush of curls against his fingers, like he’d run his hands through his own curls. It felt familiar, but so new and beautiful.

-

The worst nights were the nights Jesse Manes once again invaded his dreams. It was like watching the assault from someone else’s eyes. To see the hammer shatter his bones left a sickening feeling in his stomach and he’d wake himself up by being sick. Guilt lingered heavy those mornings, a burden he couldn’t shake. 

_Michael felt like he was losing his mind._

It took a lot longer to realize it wasn’t _his_ mind that was lost. 

-

Alex knew his dreams, they’d been a constant companion of both relief and torture through the long nights of his deployment and then the even longer days and nights of rehab. The quick naps that he’d grab when he could, just a few minutes of rest where he could replay his worst or best memories behind closed lids.

So when his dreams changed, he noticed.

_These were not his fears or his desires._

-

On good nights when the aches of his body were dull enough that he could actually enjoy the feel of cool blankets on his skin -without feeling confined- he’d dream of space. Of galaxies unfolding before him, stardust in his wake as he explored. In those dreams he felt more free than he’d ever in his life, then should be remotely possible. He felt safe and at home, hands steady on him and lips against his own, the familiar scent of his own body-wash lingering.

The bad nights, the bad nights tore him down. There was no physical pain that he felt, just terror and sick despair in the pit of his stomach as his hand pounded at a glass prison. Of screams he didn’t recognize from people he loved but couldn’t see. 

Those nights were the worst, nights where he saw two bare feet poking out of tattered pants. They looked wrong, he wasn’t sure why but he knew they weren’t his. He knew because when he saw them, both of them were intact, no metal in sight.

When he woke from those it was to nausea in his stomach and his teeth grinding as he looked at his legs, one gone with phantom aches and his other leg throbbing as if in sympathy. 

He dreamt of needles and while his father was a frequent visitor of his nightly terrors, this was different. He dreamt of watching himself being choked, of being in pain and on the floor but somehow watching as Jesse turned a bloody hammer on the seventeen year old version of himself. Despite all his fears, the horror’s his mind created with Jesse as the monster haunting his dreams, the person who died at his father’s hand had never been himself.

_Something was wrong._

-

_It got worse before it got better._

The good dreams of stardust mingled with dreams of Caulfield and those were rarely good. Sometimes, rarely he would get images of a beautiful woman with blonde hair playing with a curly haired child that he knew was Michael. However beautiful those dreams started out, they always ended in fire and misery.

Sometimes the dreams were sweet. Soft skin and light perfume, a sound he recognized as Maria’s favorite song being expertly plucked from a guitar. As comforting and beautiful as those dreams might be, he always woke from them shaking, eye damp despite himself and heart pounding with a loss that didn’t come from the dreams. Good dreams shouldn’t have been just as painful as the bad, but on those nights, they were worse for Alex.

_They weren’t his dreams, but he knew who they belonged to._

He needed answers - _some way to fix this_ \- and there was only one person he was willing to go to at the moment, he needed to talk to Isobel Evans. 

**Author's Note:**

> I am thinking about continuing this possibly, meanwhile I'm just going to try to finish out the rest of the week!
> 
> I'm on tumblr as [alexanderlightweight](https://alexanderlightweight.tumblr.com)
> 
> Also feel free to let me know if I missed any tags!


End file.
